Sometimes God seems to a God of anger and a God of difficulties for us. In
the first reading today, from the Book of Exodus, God is clearly upset with
the people He has chosen and is ready to destroy them. Moses reminds Him
that He Himself chose this people and must be faithful to them. God always
loves this kind of response from us: a commitment to one another, even
when we are sinners. We are quite within our rights as children of God to
remind Him that He created us and that He has promised us salvation.

The second reading today is from the First Letter to Timothy. This portion
of the letter teaches clearly that Jesus Christ came into this world to
save sinners. Saint Paul wants us to be clear about this teaching. Christ
came to call sinners, to treat with us normal human beings who are
untrustworthy, fickle, changeable, inconsistent and unreliable. Yet Christ
loves us and invites us to share in His life. We begin to walk the path of
salvation. Some few of us may become saints and be totally faithful to God
in all respects. Most of us walk the path or ordinary human beings and
continue to be attached to our sins, even though we are also attached to
God in Christ Jesus.

Saint Luke's Gospel today is long and wonderful. First Jesus tells us the
reason for eating with sinners and enjoying their company: He can know us
and invite us to share His life. Jesus explains that seeking out sinners
is not a rejection of the just people. It is clear, however, that a truly
just person will love sinners the way that Jesus does and the way that
Moses did in the first reading. The truly just person wants all people to
be saved and perhaps in a special way wants the salvation of those who
wander far from the truth and from God's love.

Saint Luke's Gospel also shows us that we can hope even for those who run
as far away as possible from love. The story of the son who takes his
inheritance and completely uses it up in bad living of every type is a
clear teaching of Jesus. Even those of us who run the farthest from God
may still return and be loved. There is more than one story like this in
the Gospel, showing that whenever a sinner wants to return to the Lord, the
Lord is always there to receive Him with open arms. How many times? As
many times as it takes to show the love of God.

My sisters and brothers, you and I are the sinners of the Gospel. We are
invited to return to the Lord each day, each moment, and to know that He is
always loving us and forgiving us. This is the heart of the Gospel of
Jesus: God is compassion and love. God is forgiveness countless times and
more. God wants us to know His love, even when we doubt that love. May
this Sunday give us some taste of God's love and some small desire to live
in that love. Amen.